Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture Series
ARTS Obispo, the San Luis Obispo County Arts Council established the Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture Series in 2005. Ruth was an energetic friend and supporter of the Arts as well as one of our outstanding local artists. She generously donated her time and expertise to the San Luis Obispo Art Center, organizing visual art exhibitions and arranging for nationally known artists to come to the Central Coast give lectures and do demonstrations. In addition, she was co-owner of the unique Scarlet Palette gallery in Cambria and a beloved teacher and friend.
After a long and heroic fight with cancer, Ruth died in October 2005. In an effort to keep her spirit of engagement in the culture of this community alive, the Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture Series has been created. This annual series is intended to bring an important visual artist or art critic from outside of the area to San Luis Obispo County to give a public lecture or a visiting artists’ workshop. Ruth strongly believed that bringing vibrant visiting artists into our midst enriched our lives and connected us to the culture at large.
This is part of her legacy to us, and one stimulating and enjoyable way we can keep her memory alive.
Sponsors of the Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture Series: Fine Craft at Studios on the Park and William and Barbara Fash.
The 2012 Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture Series
Curator and Author Jo Lauria Presents Fash Memorial Lecture Sunday, February 26 Curator and author Jo Lauria will discuss her work and passion for American art, craft and design on Sunday, February 26 at 3 p.m. in the Cuesta College Conference Center, Room 5401 on the San Luis Obispo campus. The event, including parking, is free and open to the public. The presentation, with a reception immediately following, is part of the Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture series sponsored by ARTS Obispo/San Luis Obispo County Arts Council. The Cuesta College Art Department is co-sponsoring Lauria’s visit.
Lauria, co-author with Steve Fenton of Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects, was a consulting art historian for the PBS film series “Craft in America.” She was chief curator of the 2007-09 “Craft in America: Expanding Traditions” national tour, and co-curator of the 2010 “Craft in America: New Millennium” exhibition.
Lauria’s books include Myth and Majesty: The Masterworks of Seth Randal; Ruth Duckworth: Modernist Sculptor; and California Design: The Legacy of West Coast Crafts and Style (with Susanne Baizerman). She most recently acted as co-curator for “Splendid Entities: 25 Years of Objects by Phyllis Green” at Otis College of Art and Design and “A Marriage of Craft and Design: The Work of Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman” at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. She was curator and exhibition text author for “Design/Process: Mentors and Nex-Gen Designers” in 2010 for OBJCT Gallery in Claremont.
While acting as assistant curator of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s decorative arts and design department from 1994 to 2002, Lauria was awarded two Andrew W. Mellon curatorial grants. She received her undergraduate degree in art from Yale, her master’s degree in communication arts from Loyola Marymount University, and her MFA from Otis College of Art and Design.
The Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture series was created in 2005 following the death of local artist Ruth Fash, aiming to keep her spirit of engagement in local culture alive. The series brings vibrant visual artists and art critics from outside San Luis Obispo County to present local public lectures and workshops.
“Ruth strongly believed that bringing artists into our midst from outside our community enriches our lives and connects us to the culture at large,” according to Marta Peluso, former ARTS Obispo Executive Director and one of the founders of the series. “She was an energetic friend and supporter of the arts as well as one of our outstanding local artists.”
Fash co-owned the Scarlet Palette gallery in Cambria, and incidentally carried work by two SLO County artists, ceramicist David Gurney and silversmith Randy Stromsoe, who were chosen by Lauria to be included in the “Craft in America” national tour. For more information, contact ARTS Obispo.
Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture Series History
Lecture: AMY FRANCESCHINI
November 21, 2010 Cuesta College Conference Center #5401 Co-sponsored by the Cuesta College Art Dept.
New Media Artist/Designer/Educator Amy Franceschini uses diverse media to explore what people often perceive to be conflicts between humans and nature. In 2008, Amy's urban agriculture program, based on the historic Victory Gardens, was adopted by the City of San Francisco.
Her work has been shown at the Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. This celebrated artist grew up in Oceano.
This talk is part of a series of lectures honoring Ruth Fash, a former local artist and energetic supporter of the arts in San Luis Obispo who died in October 2004 after a heroic fight with cancer. ARTS Obispo created the Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture series in 2005 in an effort to keep Fash’s spirit of engagement in the culture of SLO alive. This lecture series is intended to bring an important cultural figure from outside of the area to San Luis Obispo County to give a public lecture.
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Lecture: WILLIAM & BARBARA FASH, ARCHEOLOGISTS
November 18, 2007 Cuesta College Conference Center #5401 Co-sponsored by the Cuesta College Art Dept.
The third in a series of talks honoring former local artist Ruth Fash took place November 18, 2007 at Cuesta College. ARTS Obispo organized this event that was co-sponsored by the Cuesta College Art Dept. The lecture was given by the son and daughter-in-law of Ruth Fash.
William Fash worked on archaeological digs in Arizona and in Central Mexico while obtaining his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Illinois (1976). In his first year in graduate school at Harvard University he joined Gordon R. Willey’s archaeological project in Copán, Honduras, Central America in 1977. He and his wife Barbara have been working at Copán ever since, in a series of multi-institutional, multi-national, and interdisciplinary research efforts devoted to illuminating all aspects of ancient Maya lifeways and cultural history at one of its most renowned ancient cities.
With Barbara Fash, he created the Copan Mosaics Project in 1985, and subsequently spearheaded efforts to conceive, design, and construct the Sculpture Museum in Copán that showcases the magnificent cultural heritage from this site. This museum has proved important to local pride and understanding, and to the cultural patrimony of Honduras and Mesoamerica as a whole.
For his efforts he was awarded the Order of José Cecilio del Valle by the President of Honduras in 1994, and selected to succeed his mentor, Gordon Willey, as Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican Archaeology and History at Harvard University in that same year. He served as Chair of Harvard’s Department of Anthropology from 1998 – 2004, and as Director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology since 2004.
William and his wife Barbara recently received the Hoja de Laurel de Oro, a lifetime achievement award, conferred by the Minister of Culture and the Arts, and the Office of the President. It recognizes 30-plus years of service in preserving and documenting Honduras’ cultural heritage.
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Lecture: ANDREA BOWERS, VISUAL ARTIST
December 3, 2006 Cuesta College Conference Center #5401 Co-sponsored by the Cuesta College Art Dept.
"What I do is try to document people who are doing great things." Andrea Bowers
ARTS Obispo and the Cuesta College Art Department presented activist artist, Andrea Bowers as the 2nd speaker in the annual Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture Series. Bowers spoke about her recent projects including Vieja Gloria, a documentary about the first suburban tree sit in America, which was presented as part of the prestigious Whitney Biennial.
The artist also shared information about Magical Politics a collection of works on paper that explores nonviolent political movements, one of which is the nonviolent protests that took place in the 1970s locally at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. She also discussed her traveling exhibition titled Nothing is Neutral featured in the Fall 2006 issue of “Ms. Magazine.”
Bower’s documentary Vieja Gloria was shown throughout the month of December 2006 in ARTS Space Obispo.
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Lecture: RACHEL ROSENTHAL, PERFORMANCE ARTIST
November 6, 2005 Cuesta College Conference Center #5401 Co-sponsored by the Cuesta College Art Dept.
An icon in the world of performance art, Rachel Rosenthal, was honored as the first speaker in the Ruth Fash Memorial Lecture Series, a program of ARTS Obispo, the San Luis Obispo County Arts Council.
Artistic Director and founder of The Rachel Rosenthal Company, Rosenthal is an interdisciplinary performer who developed a revolutionary performance technique that integrates text, movement, voice, choreography, improvisation, inventive costuming, dramatic lighting and wildly imaginative sets into an unforgettable “total theater” experience. In the last twenty-five years of her performing career she presented over 40 full-scale pieces nationally & internationally. Critics have called her “a monument and a marvel” and Richard Schechner, editor of The Drama Review (TDR), has critically ranked Rosenthal with Robert Wilson, Ping Chong, Richard Foreman, Meredith Monk and Laurie Anderson.
Born in Paris of Russian parents, Rosenthal’s family fled Europe during WWII to New York where she graduated from the high school of Music and Art and became a U.S. citizen. She studied art, theatre and dance in Paris and N.Y. after the war with such teachers as Hans Hoffmann, Merce Cunningham, Erwin Piscator and Jean-Louis Barrault.
She moved to California in 1955 where she created the experimental Instant Theatre, performing in and guiding it for ten years. She was a leading figure in the L.A. Women’s Art Movement in the 1970’s, co-founding WomanSpace, among other projects. During that period, her focus split between the performing and visual art world, she created and exhibited her ceramic sculptures. Since 1975, Rosenthal has focused primarily on creating new works for the theatre, writing, performing and teaching.
